Skin
by thimbles
Summary: The body's biggest organ. Three layers deep. I don't know about you, but I wear a lot of my history on mine. Entry for the Straight Thru the Heart Contest. 1st Place Judges' Vote; Charming Cherub Award (Most Potential for a Full Story); cejsmom's Favourite.
_My sincerest thanks to BelieveItOrNot, who encouraged me to stick with this, even when the word limit made me despair, and to Hadley Hemingway, who adds all my missing commas and crosses out my redundant thats. Ladies, I'm so grateful for the time you invest in me. *kisses*_

* * *

N.B.: No medical condition, particularly one affecting the brain, is experienced in exactly the same way by different people. Edward's experience may not match someone else's. It is, however, based on real events.

* * *

 _Skin:_ _The body's biggest organ. Three layers deep. I don't know about you, but I wear a lot of my history on mine._

* * *

It doesn't matter that I hang up different coloured towels for us, he still ends up using mine. How can he not distinguish between lavender and navy blue? I guess I'll drip dry. _Again_.

I check the time on my phone and lift my gaze to the toothpaste-speckled mirror.

 _Who is that woman?_

It's certainly not me. My shoulders are squarer than hers, strong from paddling out into the surf every day before dawn. My hair is lighter, mousy brown turned gold by the sun. My teeth are whiter. My skin is browner. My eyes are clearer. My nipples point higher. Age has made me vain: when I picture myself, I still see the body of a girl barely out of her teens.

My gaze lands on the apostrophe-shaped scar above my eyebrow. Reality reasserts itself: _There I am._

I still remember the feel of wet grass under my feet as we ran through the sprinkler, the echoes of my brothers' and the Masen boys' laughter. I remember the way James went grey when he saw the blood dripping down the side of my face. He had been chasing me, a worm dangling from his muddy fingers, when I tripped on the pavers. I reached out to catch myself, but my face clipped the edge of the old, weathered table.

Growing up with six boys, two brothers and the four Masen boys next door, I took a few tumbles. We did some pretty silly shit as kids. Age-wise, I slotted in at number four, right in the middle of the seven of us.

Dad prised four slats out of the fence between our houses a few weeks after Mrs. Masen bailed. All seven of us sat on the cracked concrete beneath our clothes line, watching him work, until he called us over to see if we could fit through the gap. Mike, Edward, and Emmett had to squeeze through sideways.

"Take the whole fence down, Dad." Ben's gaze was on the treehouse over the Masens' side of the fence.

Dad laughed. "You're not getting free rein, champ. We're just trying to work out the best way to look after the lot of you."

"Like a coalition?" I asked. We had been learning about the federal government at school, and I knew two parties sometimes made a deal to work together.

"Exactly." Dad ruffled my hair, and I stood a little taller. "A parenting coalition."

Ben scratched his forehead, smudging it with dirt. "Is Carlisle our second dad now?"

Dad coughed into his elbow. "Nah. But you better behave yourself when you're over there." He looked at the rest of us. "You'll all head over there after school." He nodded towards the Masens' house. "Get your homework done, then you're free to do whatever until I get home."

"What _ever_?" Mike folded his arms across his chest. "Can we go surfing?"

"Up to Carlisle. You gotta do your homework first. And you take the younger kids with you if you do go down the beach."

Mike groaned. He looked to Edward for support, but Edward shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Good. Carlisle starts at the hospital at seven most days, so I'll do dinner, and then it's just a matter of keeping an ear out for you boys"—he waved a hand towards the Masens—"while you have your showers and get ready for bed."

"Can you make Edward read my stories?" Jasper scowled at his oldest brother, who lifted his hands like, _"Did I say I wouldn't?!"_

Dad's smile was sad. "I can read your stories, Jasper." Edward was almost fourteen, so he probably could've managed his brothers' bedtime stories and Lights Out regime, but I suspect Dad was trying to spare him some responsibility. Dad had been on his own since Mum died, just after Ben was born, so he knew how tough it was, looking after three kids alone.

I reach for the tube of over-priced, gardenia-scented moisturiser that promises to fight wrinkles and sagging skin. My reflection rubs slow circles across her face. The two scars on her right hand are further proof this bag of skin actually contains _me_.

Eric Yorkie used to start in on us at bus lines. Ours was the last bus to arrive of an afternoon, and by then the teachers were bored and inattentive. The day I smashed up my hand, Emmett and I were playing our version of handball, bouncing a tennis ball up against the canteen wall.

I knew what was coming as soon as I heard Eric's voice. "Hey, Swan."

"What d'you want?" I snatched the ball from the air and put my hands on my hips.

"Is it true your old man's a fag?" He always said "fag" like he was spitting it at us. "And he's fuckin' Emmett's dad?"

Jacob Black's laugh sounded like a donkey's hee-haw. "Which one's the girl?"

Eric thrust his hips at me. "Which one takes it up the arse? I bet it's Masen's dad. He looks like a pussy."

The way Emmett pressed his lips together so tight they turned white lit a fire under me. Emmett swallowed hard, and his left eye blinked faster than the right. I knew he was trying not to cry. I grabbed Eric by the shoulder and shoved him into the wall. I would have landed my fist right in his ugly mouth if it hadn't been for Edward. He yanked me away from Eric, and I slammed my fist left of where I intended—into the brick wall.

I yelled in pain. Blood dripped over my knuckles, stained my school shirt as I cradled my hand to my chest.

"Shit. I'm sorry." Edward touched my elbow. "Show me?"

I kicked towards his shin. "Get fucked." It felt good to swear at him.

I didn't cry until the triage nurse said she would have to cut my signet ring off. Dad had given it to me on my tenth birthday. Sandwiching it between the brick wall and my finger had left it bent out of shape and half-embedded in my finger. Edward held my left hand while the nurse cleaned and dressed my wounds. His knee jiggled; he passed my hand between his and shifted in his seat. "That was stupid, Bella. Punching him would've made everything worse."

"Not for my hand it wouldn't."

His eyebrows climbed towards his hair when the nurse spoke up. "I bet if She-Ra here'd punched the kid, he wouldn't be saying dick to anyone for weeks."

I still think the black eye Eric showed up with two days later was Edward's doing. He still pretends he doesn't know what I'm talking about.

The tube of hand lotion on the vanity is the same brand as the moisturiser. It smells the same, but feels lighter, less greasy. I rub it over the backs of my hands and between my fingers.

Edward got into a lot of fights back then. As soon as he walked in the school gate, someone—usually Sammy Uley or Jared Cameron—yelled out "Spedward's here."

Edward's shoulders tensed, creeping closer to his ears; a hunched appearance that gave the sheep more fodder.

"Aww. Spedward mad? Spedward hit stuff?"

That nickname made _me_ want to hit stuff. Edward's ADHD diagnosis had landed him in Special Ed. classes for a while in primary school. No one ever let him forget it—even though, or maybe especially because, he was ridiculously intelligent.

Nine days out of ten, Edward ignored the spitballs, the elbows to his ribs, the ankle-taps, until the final bell rang. He unlocked his bike from the rack, jammed his helmet on his head, and raced away from school before his temper broke.

The other days, Carlisle would end up in the principal's office with some shithead claiming, "Edward punched me for no reason!"

Edward imitated Mr. Banner, the principal, at the dinner table. "Sticks and stones, Edward. Violence is never the answer." He pushed his plate towards Emmett, who grabbed the untouched chicken drumstick. "I'd like to see Uley or Cameron pick on that dickwad all day, see how he takes it."

It wasn't only kids that hurt Edward. I remember the first time Carlisle brought a "lady friend" home. That's what he said: "I've invited a lady friend over for dinner on Sunday night."

Dad had taken Mike and Ben to the football. He had gotten me a ticket, but I wasn't interested, so Emmett went instead. I spent the evening on the Masens' side of the fence, mostly hanging out in the treehouse, reading, and writing in my journal. In the coded alphabet Angela and I invented, I doodled love hearts and wrote down the things I'd started noticing about Edward—the way he shook his hair out of his eyes just before he caught a wave, the way he talked about the books he was reading with me, the colour of his eyes, the definition of his muscles, how he never wore shoes.

The lady friend, Sue, was nice enough. Chatty, but still interested in listening to the boys and me talk about our days. She wore about eight million bracelets—thin metal ones, chunky plastic ones, colourful beaded ones. I envied the way she jangled as she cut up her chicken breast, or reached for her glass of wine.

As usual, I sat between Jasper and Edward. Jasper pointed at my garlic bread. "Bella, did you know the end slice is my favourite?" Edward picked at his dinner.

When Carlisle started clearing away the plates, Sue asked Edward if he was going to finish his chicken. "A growing boy like you needs lots of protein."

Edward shrugged. "I'm not hungry."

"My m– parents always said I had to eat everything on my plate before I got dessert." Her smile was open, friendly; I think she was trying to tease him.

Edward focused on his plate. Beneath the table, his knee bounced away. "It's the Ritalin. Messes with my appetite."

Sue dropped the subject then, but we all heard her, as she was helping Carlisle prepare dessert in the kitchen, ask: "Isn't he a bit old to be on Ritalin?"

Edward left the table and didn't come out of his bedroom for the rest of the night. I'm not sure if that was why Carlisle never brought Sue around again, but she exited the scene as quickly as she had appeared.

Not long after that, on my thirteenth birthday, Edward gave me dozens of cheap, colourful bangles. I still wear the ones that haven't been bent out of shape or stolen by small children.

Edward was always good at noticing what I liked, what made me uncomfortable, what made me mad. That was probably the reason he was with me when I got the line of crater-like scars on my left shin a few months later.

I found him in the room he and Emmett shared, cross-legged on his bed, reading. His sun-bleached hair hung past his chin and hid his face from me. I knocked on the door jamb, then sat on Emmett's bed to wait while he finished his chapter. He hated being interrupted when there wasn't a clear pause in the text.

He dog-eared a page, closed the book, and put it on his bedside table. "You right?"

"What are you reading?"

" _The House that was Eureka_. We're studying it in English."

"Good?"

He frowned, tapping his fingers and thumb rhythmically. "It's interesting. Makes me think. I'm not really good at history. I get bored, you know? I can't see how it matters. What's a bunch of pyramids in Egypt got to do with us? But this is, like, making me see how important the past is. We can't really escape it. Ever. We don't even know how much our lives depend on stuff that happened ages ago."

"You mean, like, we live in a democracy, so understanding ancient Greece matters because they invented it?"

The speed of his finger tapping increased. "I guess, yeah. Smaller stuff, too." He waved an arm towards the window. "Who lived in this house or this street thirty years ago? What was here a hundred years ago? A thousand years ago? Does that affect who lives here now? Or what matters to 'em. Know what I mean?"

I wasn't sure I did, but I liked the way Edward assumed I could keep up with him.

"Hey, did you need something?"

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth and nodded. "I was… Okay, this might be a bit weird, but you shave, right?"

He rubbed his fingertips over the stubble scattered across his jaw. "Yeah, why?"

I scratched my eyebrow and looked at my knees. Light caught on the fine, blonde hairs. "I want to shave my legs."

"Your dad…"

"Will tell me I'm too young, or call Nan, who will definitely say I'm too young. And Mike will probably make fun of me for having hairy legs."

Edward looked at his own legs, fingering the coarser, darker hair that grew there. "Are you? Too young, I mean?"

"It's just hair. It'll grow back. And anyway, they're my legs."

"Fair enough."

Wet towels and dirty clothes covered the floor. The vanity was strewn with toothbrushes and combs and acne cream. Edward bundled up the towels and clothes and tossed them towards the hamper, apologising for the mess.

"Ours looks the same. Until Mike freaks out and cleans it."

I sat on the edge of the tub and pulled up the hems of my shorts. Edward rummaged through the drawers until he found a disposable razor.

"It's new," he said. "Keep it." He leaned over and ran his fingers over my calf. My stomach tightened. "Your hair's really soft. Won't blunt the razor as fast as whiskers do."

He handed me a can of shaving cream and sat on the closed toilet. "On the ads, they just like…" He mimed dragging the razor from his ankle to his knee. "That way. Opposite the way it grows. Then rinse the shit off under the tap."

I lathered up my right leg and pulled the razor up my calf. "It's not that hard."

"Yeah. Just be careful."

I finished my right leg, my confidence growing. I swiped the razor up my left shin. "Shit!" It stung like crazy. My skin went white before blood oozed from the gashes.

"Far out. You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Maybe you should finish later? When you're not like, bleeding everywhere?"

"As if I'm going to walk around with one hairy leg." I finished, slower, and without any further blood loss. It took six band-aids to cover the five cuts. So much for flying under Dad's radar.

Dad wasn't too pissed off, but he did have a talk with me about why I felt the need to strip the hair off my legs. I think he was worried I wanted to let boys touch them or something. At that age, though, my imagination regarding 'things you can do with boys' didn't extend much beyond holding hands and kissing.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of you and Edward holed up in the bathroom, either, Bella." Dad rubbed his forefinger over his moustache.

"Why? Mike would've just teased me and Emmett doesn't shave yet."

"Edward's a lot older than you."

"Only two years."

Dad sighed. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Whatever." I wouldn't need to be in the bathroom with Edward again, anyway.

As Hurricane Hormones bore down on the two households, our fathers kept a closer eye on the lot of us. The "Bella can't be in the boys' rooms with the doors closed" rule appeared around the same time Dad took me shopping for proper bras. It ticked me off, both the bra shopping—it took me a while to accept my breasts were both normal and permanent—and the new rule.

I was okay with my dad installing a lock on my bedroom door, but I kicked up a fuss when he suggested I start taking my clothes into the bathroom with me, instead of running back to my room wrapped in my towel.

"Tell the boys to do the same and I'll think about it. I mean, have you seen Emmett's chest lately? His abs?"

Dad looked uncomfortable, but he couldn't exactly argue with me. And I was happy to encourage his belief that I was interested in Emmett, because it yanked his attention from the actual focus of my hormones: Edward.

It could have been what my dad called _propinquity_ : a good-looking, older guy who basically lived in the same house would be easy to fall for. But the same things could be said about Emmett, and I fought with him more than I did with Mike. No, with Edward it wasn't simply that I saw him all the time, or the fact he was really cute. It was the way he came looking for me when he read something profound. It was the way he pretended to tip his hat at me when he passed me in the hallway at school. All the boys went through a phase of being embarrassed by me—I was the bossy big sister or the annoying younger one; I was too girly, not girly enough—but Edward grew out of it faster than the rest of them. Maybe unsurprising. He was older and not my brother, but it meant a lot to me.

When I was in Year 9, it became routine for him to wait for me at the gate after school. He even came back up to the school on a Tuesday afternoon, the day the senior grades finished early. He waited in the middle of the footpath, straddling his BMX, oblivious to the people stepping around him.

"Your escort's here," Angela would say.

Edward would salute her and tell me, "Jump on."

Standing on the pegs protruding from his rear wheel gave me an excuse to touch him, my hands anchored on his waist.

"See what happened to Uley this morning?" I had to lean forward, my chest brushing his back, to hear him.

"No?"

I felt his laughter through his ribs. "He split his pants trying to climb the back fence on a dare. Had to cover his arse the whole way up to the office to see if there were any spares in Lost Property."

I would have felt bad for anyone else. But Sam Uley had a shitty habit of pantsing people in the playground, and he had frequently targeted Edward. "Sucked in."

"Karma really is a bitch, huh?"

The house rules were negotiated and updated as we got older. Dad once stopped a game of Bull Rush to demand a "No wrestling Bella" clause be added to the "No holding people down past the count of three" rule.

"What, so I just sit and watch them play? That's bullcrap, Dad. You're basically punishing me for not having a penis." The boys all looked at their grassy feet.

"He just doesn't want you to get hurt," Edward said.

"Jasper and Ben are littler than me, and they're allowed to play." Edward scratched his eyebrow and wouldn't meet my gaze. I folded my arms across my chest, feeling betrayed. I looked back at my dad. "This isn't fair."

Dad sighed. The compromise: "'Stop!' means you stop."

There were still moments when the word "girl" became something concrete, something "other," for the guys. Like when Jasper looked up from his chicken nuggets, and with all the seriousness a five-year-old can muster, asked me if I had a "fagina." Or the time I walked in on Mike reading the little leaflet that comes in a tampon box. He turned the colour of my worst sunburn.

I don't have a scar to document the moment I realised Edward saw me as a girl, not a sister, but it is tattooed on my brain.

The surf was pretty crap, mushy as hell, so we were just sitting out the back, paddling our legs as the sun warmed our shoulders.

"Looking forward to Year 10?" Edward asked. The summer holidays were almost over.

I shrugged. "Won't be much different to Year 9. Do you know what you're gonna do next year?"

"Not yet." He gathered his damp hair into a knot. Carlisle had wanted him to cut it, but the thought made Edward anxious. He hated soft drink bubbles going up his nose, tags on the collars of his shirts, the sound of fingers against polystyrene, and people touching his hair. They compromised—I taught Edward how to tie it back.

"Will you go to uni?"

"I guess. Don't know what I'll study."

"Books? English?"

He smiled. "Yeah, maybe."

"I'm going to do law." I untwisted my bikini strap. "Environmental." I had huge plans. I was going to put an end to Japan's "scientific" whaling, save the Great Barrier Reef from being destroyed by oil companies, and help Indigenous communities prevent mining on their lands.

"You should. You'd be good at that."

"Thanks."

The silence that fell between us was as easy as the slow roll of the swell beneath our boards. A couple of bream swam towards my foot. I dragged my toes through the water and they disappeared in a streak of silver. On shore, a toddler squealed as she raced away from the whitewash.

"I'm gonna move out."

I looked at Edward, my mouth open, my mind blank. "What? Why?"

I remembered the look on Carlisle's face the previous Saturday, when he had walked into the living room while Edward and I were watching _rage_. I had my feet in Edward's lap and was trying to convince him to paint my toenails.

"Come on."

"Nah. Your feet are cute and all—"

"No one's feet are cute."

He traced the bones in my ankle. "Yours are, but I'm still not going to paint your toenails."

"Edward? Can you give me a hand?" Carlisle's jaw was tense, his hands fisted on his hips. I wondered if Edward had left his boards spread across the garage floor again.

Edward patted my calf and I lifted my feet from his lap. "What's up?" He followed his dad from the room.

I didn't hear Carlisle answer, but a few minutes later, the lawn mower spluttered to life. I looked out the window to see a pissed off Edward marching the machine across the grass.

Maybe Edward wanted to move out because he wanted some independence. Maybe he was tired of being the oldest, the responsible one. Perhaps he wanted a break from the expectations piled up on him.

Edward sighed. He leaned forward until he was stretched out on his stomach. He pushed his arms through the water, forward and back, forward and back. The muscles across his back and shoulders bunched and released.

"'Cause I really like you, Bella."

I nearly fell off my board. My heart thundered, my limbs felt like jelly. Edward was my yardstick, my touchstone, the guy I would measure everyone else against. _This guy wasn't as good a listener as Edward; that one wasn't as smart_. I assumed I would eventually fall in love with someone who would sweep me off my feet and Edward from my mind.

Edward kept talking, his voice soft like the lap of water against fibreglass. "But you're too young and we've pretty much been raised as siblings. Even before Mum left. I mean, there's photos of us in the bath together."

I stiffened. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Edward's cheeks and nose were red—we had forgotten to put on sunscreen. Salt crusted his eyebrows, made his hair look almost white-blond in places.

"Dad talked to me…" He blew out a breath and pushed himself back up to straddle his board. "He said—just listen, 'cause it's gonna sound weird. It's hard to explain and I don't wanna mess it up. But Dad said the problem with, uh, incest"—he cringed—"isn't only that you're blood related."

"We're not blood-related."

"I know that. Just… He said that part of the problem is like, how vulnerable you are."

"Me?"

He shook his head. "Both of us. But especially you. Because we've had like, an older-brother, younger-sister relationship… I might take advantage of your trust in me, you know?"

"No." Is _that_ why he was mad the other day? Not because of the lawn, but because Carlisle had accused him of taking advantage of me? How dare he!

A couple of seagulls landed in the water a few metres away, squawking as they bobbled on the surface of the sea. Edward splashed them. "Piss off."

"Sounds like a load of shit to me." I scraped some old wax from my board with my thumbnail. "You're saying you like me but you have to move away because your old man thinks you kissing me would be like kissing your sister? That it'd be, what, a–abusive?"

Edward scooped water over his face and hair. Drops clung to his chin, his nose, his lips. "Yes and no. Whatever Dad thinks is beside the point. I want—I'm gonna move away for uni, give us both space to grow up. And then… I mean, I don't even know if this"—he waved a hand between the two of us—"is something you'd want."

I wanted it. I never believed I could have it. But right as I learnt "maybe" existed, it was being snatched away, put on pause.

"I'm not asking you to like, wait for me or anything."

"I'm not going to." I regretted the words as soon as they left my lips.

Edward looked at me, his lips pressed together, his fingers tapping out their anxious patterns. "It can't work yet. You're…"

"What? Still a kid?"

"Well, legally, yeah." He shifted on his board, tugging his shorts down.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Is this about sex? Because I'll be sixteen in September."

"Bella…"

"Is that it? You like me, but I'm underage and you'd have to wait like, eight months to sleep with me and that's too long so you can't be stuffed?" I didn't know whether to be freaked out or flattered by the thought. Did he want to have sex with me? Did I want to have sex with him?

"That's not—It's not just about sex." He didn't say it wasn't about sex at all. "But I think we both need some distance. Some time. To get out of each other's pockets. So we don't… So we don't just end up together because it was, I dunno, easy."

I was too hurt, too shaken by having the promise of _something_ given and withdrawn so quickly, to admit his logic was growing on me. "Whatever. Who said I even wanted to be with you?"

I was a complete shit to him for the rest of that year. Every chance I got, I made a snide remark about his age, my lack of it. I brought guys around, hoping to make him jealous. I "accidentally" dobbed him in when he skipped school. It was petty and juvenile, the worst possible way to convince him I was mature enough to be with him.

I fed off my anger and hurt, let them sustain me as Edward made plans for a future designed to exclude me. On his final night at home, I missed the family dinner to go to the movies with Angela.

The four tiny scars, one below my belly button, two on the right side of my lower abdomen, and one above my pubic bone, are difficult to see on my reflected self. To see the latter on the corporeal me, I have to press my hand against my stomach and curl my pelvis forward.

Edward's first email arrived about four months after he moved away.

 _Bella,_

 _Em told me you were really sick. Appendicitis? I was worried. Hope you're recovering okay._

 _Edward._

It took me a week to find the guts to reply. I had acted like a brat to him for so long.

 _Hi, Edward._

 _Thanks for checking on me. I'm doing okay. They did what's called a_ _laparoscopic appendectomy_ _, so the incisions were really tiny. It's supposed to mean less pain, but I'm still pretty sore. Maybe I'm just a wimp._

 _Bella._

A few weeks later, he emailed to say he thought I would enjoy the book he was reading for one of his English courses. I went and bought it that afternoon.

 _Hi, Edward._

 _Just finished_ White Teeth _. It was wonderful. Amazing. Thanks for the tip._

 _Bella. xo_

 _P.S. Any other suggestions?_

An easy back and forth began then, him telling me what he was reading, me searching it out and devouring it, then letting him know what I thought of it. The emails got longer as, "I really liked it," progressed to conversations about themes and literary devices. Sometimes I was so busy keeping up with what Edward was reading, I got behind on my own work.

Personal details began to slip into our discussions of Shakespeare and Faulkner and Achebe. Between his thoughts on _Things Fall Apart_ , and some ideas for his essay on _Norwegian Wood_ , Edward wrote, _I told you about my housemate, Alistair, right? He's going through a really rough time. I'm worried about him but I don't know what to say._

At the end of a long complaint about how much homework my Indonesian teacher set, I wrote, _Angela is being a weirdo about me and Em. I_ _swear she thinks we take baths together and all sleep in the same bed like a family from the olden days._ _Doesn't matter that I've told her I'll only ever see him as a brother, she's still acting like a jerk about it._

My journals were abandoned, stuffed into a box at the back of my cupboard. I had a journal that wrote back now, one who sympathised and gave advice and told me funny stories. Even when Edward came home for a weekend, we saved the deep stuff for our emails. We would surf and hang out with our brothers, and it wasn't as though we had nothing to say. But the big things, the hard to articulate things, the things that dove beneath the surface and made us vulnerable, those things we poured into lines of type.

 _You know those kaleidoscopes we used to have? You twisted them, and the coloured beads tumbled over each other and made new patterns and it was really pretty but it made you dizzy after a while? When Paul kissed me, it felt like that._

 _I think my dad's met someone, Bella. I haven't asked him because I don't know if I want to hear the answer. I want him to be happy, I really do. Maybe it's because I'm not at home, but I'm sorta scared my family will move on, grow into something I'm not part of._

 _Your dad hasn't said anything, but I'll let you know if he does. Did I ever tell you I used to wish those rumours about our dads were true? I know it's pretty naïve, but I always worried about them being lonely. I figured maybe they could have a happily-ever-after together._

 _I told you about Bree, right? The one who asked me out while I was making her almond milk latte and I nearly spilled the pitcher all over my pants? Yeah, I ended things with her. She was really cool, but I didn't see her for two weeks and didn't even realise. She came in to work to ask why I hadn't called her. We always just planned our dates when she stopped in for her coffee, but some new café up the street is using macadamia milk, so she started going there. I feel bad. It didn't even cross my mind to call her. Figured that meant I should probably stop wasting her time._

 _Angela and Emmett are so fucking gross. They spend all of lunchtime joined at the mouth. Brady started this game, you get a point if you can land an eraser in one of their laps while they're going at it. Two points if the eraser is still there when the bell rings._

 _I really want to come home this weekend, but I've got three essays to write. Doing five subjects this semester was the dumbest idea ever._

 _I think I want to do it with Paul. He says he'll wait but I think I'm ready. How do you know if you're ready?_

 _1\. You don't refer to sex as "doing it." 2. You don't need to ask how to know you're ready._

 _I got my bellybutton pierced. Dad wasn't keen, but I told him I could always take it out so he gave in. It looks awesome, but I nearly fainted afterwards. I'm such a wuss around pointy things._

 _I'm dropping that writing subject. I can't do five subjects and work. If I ever contemplate doing more than four again, feel free to punch me in the nuts._

 _I want to have sex with Paul. Are you still seeing Claire?_

 _Sounds like you're ready. Get him to make you come first. Remember, you can change your mind at any time. And no, I'm not. She broke it off last week. I'm okay._

 _It was so good. I think I love him._

 _I'm happy for you, Bella._

 _So I met Esme. She seems really nice. It's pretty weird seeing your dad act all lovey and stuff. Her kids are pretty cute, too._

 _I think it's pretty shit of Dad not to wait until I could be there. I get that he's happy and in love, but couldn't he have waited until all his kids were there? Or do I not count anymore? BTW, are her kids girls or boys? I don't think he even told me that._

 _Sorry you're hurt, Edward. I wish Carlisle had waited until you could be there, too. Esme has one of each. Riley is 4 and Emily is 2._

 _Maybe you won't be the only girl in the family soon._

 _Paul cheated on me. Fucking dickhead. He kissed Katie Denali at Tanya's party. Angela told me and I got mad at her even though she was just trying to be a good friend. Paul says he was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing. Says he thought it was me. Because it's really easy to confuse me with someone who looks like Kate Moss. NOT. I'm so mad and so hurt and it just fucking sucks._

 _I'm sorry, Bella. I don't know what to say. I'd offer to punch him for you but the dude is like, at least twice the size of me and I don't think getting my head smashed in would make you feel better. Or would it? I'd think about letting him break my face if it would make you smile._

 _Your face is too pretty to let Paul wreck it. I'm doing okay. Some days I miss him, miss "us," like crazy. Some days I can imagine being over him. I applied to Macquarie, BTW. Combined B. Environment and B. Laws._

The scar on my left shoulder is only visible in certain light. Under those harsh, fluorescent tubes that make everyone look strung out, it's there, a thick silvery stroke across my trapezius. But in the bathroom, with morning sun filtering through frosted glass, I go cross-eyed trying to find it.

Angela and I shared a room in our first year of uni. With six girls crammed into a four bedroom house, Angela and I decided to fulfil the girlhood dreams of an only-child and an only-girl. We bought a bunk bed off Gumtree and played rock, paper, scissors for the top bunk. I lost. The first time I came home drunk from the Ubar, I misjudged climbing into bed and lost a few layers of skin to one of the springs beneath Angela's mattress.

Edward and I kept up the emails, too, even though we saw each other several times a week, and the closet-sized apartment he shared with two other guys was a five minute walk from my place. He sent me directions to my different classes—I think I was the only first year who didn't get lost in O Week—and to the best coffee shop (not the one he worked in, apparently), and to the place with the best pho. We emailed each other about the books we were reading and the essays we were writing, and complained to each other about Carlisle and Esme's over-the-top wedding plans. He emailed me to invite Angela and me to Alistair's twenty-first, and he emailed me to meet him out the front of my place stupidly early one Sunday morning in May.

I knew what he had planned as soon as I saw the boards crammed down the middle of his station wagon. "I think I love you," I told him, as he handed me a coffee cup with _Wk L Sk_ written on the lid. I petted the Mini Mal I'd only used once since the semester started, then frowned. "Did you go home?"

"Yeah." He rolled his eyes. "Suit fitting yesterday."

"I would've come—"

"You had that essay to write for Contracts. You got it done, right?"

"Yep. How was it up there?"

"Insane." He chuckled and swept the hair falling from his bun off his face. "I had to stand still for so fucking long so this crazy dude with a mouthful of pins wouldn't stab me."

I winced in sympathy. His brain scans showed he had mostly outgrown his ADHD, but Edward still didn't cope well with tasks that required prolonged stasis.

"Oh, and Dad and Esme want me to cut my hair for the wedding."

"No!"

His eyebrows twitched as he pulled out from the kerb. "That's what I said."

I tried, and failed, to picture him with short hair.

The surf was worth the drive to the coast. Crisp and clean, and aside from a pair of old guys riding longboards, empty. We didn't talk much, just revelled in the easy silence as we sat out the back between sets. The wind picked up as the morning wore on, and we were both shivering, our fingertips white and wrinkled, our eyes red from the salt, when we dragged our boards back up onto the sand.

"Just be a sec," I told Edward, as I grabbed my dry clothes and headed for the public toilet block. It was too cold to stay in my swimmers, and I had never mastered the art of putting my undies on with a towel wrapped around my waist.

Edward was fiddling with his phone when I slid into the passenger seat. I fished mine from the glove box. I had two new text messages. One from Kim, a girl in my Criminal Justice class, and one from Edward. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was time-stamped five minutes earlier.

 _Edward: Bella, I think I love you too. Will you be my girlfriend?_

My hip jammed against my surfboard, I leaned over, grabbed the front of Edward's shirt, and kissed him. My heart stuttered, my stomach swooped as I felt his lips part and his tongue sweep across mine. For the first time in ages, I learned something new about Edward. How he kissed, hard and greedy like he was making up for lost time, then slow and sweet like he'd realised we had all the time in the world. I learned the sounds he made as my hand moved across his chest, down his stomach. Discovered the scrape of his unshaven cheek against my neck, the weight of his hand on my breast.

"Fucking boards." His thumb flicked my nipple through my bra.

My breath faltered as his lips moved to my neck. "Take me back to your place."

He paused, pulled his lips from my throat. His hair tickled my chin. "You sure?"

Was it too soon? We were only a few minutes into this new iteration of our relationship. But I knew him inside out, trusted him completely. I loved him. The only reason to wait would be to draw out the anticipation, to build the intensity as we were dragged towards the inevitable… Which didn't sound half bad, really.

"We don't have to do everything today." His teeth found my ear and pulled a groan from my throat. "But we should definitely make a start."

The smile my reflection wears, bottom lip pulling towards the right, that's all me. It graces every family snapshot, every school photo, every selfie I've taken. I toss the moisturiser and hand lotion into the drawer and pick up my phone.

I've just finished typing the email when Edward pushes open the door. I watch his reflection as his smile becomes a smirk.

"Didn't realise you were up," he says.

I grin. "I could say the same thing."

He palms the back of his neck as he looks down at his crotch. "Occupational hazard."

I roll my eyes, but I don't object when he steps behind me and brings his hands to my breasts. I lean back against him as he tugs at my nipples, and moan softly as he presses his "occupational hazard" against me.

I'm sprawled across our bed, sweaty and sleepy-sated when I remember the email.

"Edward." I poke him in the ribs. "The real estate agent was going to email you this morning." That's not a lie. The real estate agent _was_ going to email us once she'd taken our offer to the vendor.

Edward groans as he fumbles for his phone. His soft chuckle dies in his throat, and I know he's read my email:

 _Edward, I love you so much._

 _And I'm pregnant._

 _P.S. Stop using my fucking towel._


End file.
